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  • SELinux AKA Security-Enhanced Linux

    The first time I now came seriously across it was with Oracle Linux Server. I wasted like hours logging into that OS unsuccessfully supposedly making use of $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys, misinterpreting the error messages.

  • my new Apple mini “ALTERNATE EDITION” – 2,6 GHz Intel Core i7 – 16 GB RAM – “Fusion Drive”: 256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD

    This is my new office Mac. It is an incredible fun to work with it. It is wired to my LAN.

    • I followed the procedure I described for setting up the MacBook Air (chromium, Firefox, Fink, my utilities, …)
    • a Samsung MFP (SCX-4623) is attached to it, so it needs the “Samsung Scan and Fax Manager” – I searched samsung.com for SCX-4623, then for its downloadables, and that was it

    It also serves as a VirtualBox host:

    • 1st appliance: Oracle DB; OS: Oracle Linux Server with SELinux
    • 2nd (planned) VM: another SUSE Linux

    I will be able to run various OS-s, systems, … as VM-s.

    Because its network connection is through LAN (i.e. not WiFi), VirtualBox supports “bridged network connections” for the VM guests, and every single VM can have an ordinary LAN IP address, and every host and every VM guest can talk to each other ordinarily.

    VirtualBox does not support “bridged network connections”, if the host itself is only connected to its environment through WiFi.

    So this is somehow the 1st time I am able to enjoy easy ssh access to a VM guest. I have been suffering quite a while from NAT connections with strange port set-ups on my MacBook Pro, connected mostly via WiFi.

  • openSUSE-13.1 : upgrading again …

    My major goal these day is “updating my CV” – but because of how my CV is built (in a very special XML dialect with a very special authoring and publishing software), I usually want to run it in a rather up-to-date OS environment – in order to be able to replace outdated and non-working pieces, therefore:

    1. OS update of the  VM (ie. openSUSE – actually I do consider replacing it by SLES)
    2. updating the CV authoring software
    3. updating my CV

    Installing resp. upgrading openSUSE Linux (for now simply “installing“):

    • it does look lean and slick to install openSUSE Linux from the “Network” DVD image (“downloads the installation system and all packages from online repositories“), but it takes hours to install over the network, even if that is rather fast
    • downloading the “complete DVD” does not take hours, and installing from the “complete DVD” is far faster than installing over the network
    • this time I am installing over the network, but in the future I am going to try the “complete DVD” approach

    Update 2014-07-16: This upgrade (12.3->13.1) was also a migration x86->x64, also concerning VirtualBox a little – but .
    It looks, as if this was my smoothest migration in years.

    • Virtual Desktops got preserved
    • the home banking Java software works w/o changes
    • Emacs still works
    • …

  • Q: who fouled Neymar during the 2014 soccer world cup? A: Juan Camilo Zúñiga, Colombia’s #18

  • Monday evening jogging at Berlin Tiergarten: 9.37 km in 00:59:16

    There were far too many obstacles around Brandenburg Gate – both moving and static (tourists and barricades) – partly / mostly because of the Tuesday celebration of the national soccer team, that won the world cup on Sunday.

    I also ran into a dead end around the Gate, where I lost quite a couple of minutes, when I moved at an incredibly low speed in the undergrowth, where somebody silly had directed me.

  • Pre-Built Developer VMs for Oracle VM VirtualBox: Oracle DB, Solaris, …

    It looks rather, rather intriguing to run a ready-made VM with Oracle DB. Let’s see, how and wether it will work out! A ready-made VM with Oracle DB: That would trueyl be the easiest way to improve my Oracle DB, and SQL, and PL/SQL skills – together with the fine o’Reilly books on the related topics. How often did I only abandon this idea, because it wasn’t that easy to install Oracle DB on Suse Linux…

    Amongst the various choices I went for the “Database App Development VM” (still valid and unchanged on 2014-11-12):

    Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 account details: Username and password is oracle.

    And this very nice software will run on the very nice and fat Mac mini due to arrive tomorrow resp. on Wednesday. The “Oracle DB VM” will have its own and separate IP address on the LAN, that way the Oracle DB server will just be available on the LAN – w/o any restrictions because of its VM environment. This is going to be exciting and … breath-taking … – I will be able to learn Oracle DB and put that on my skill list.

    Update 2014-07-16: For starting the Oracle Linux Server you need to have the VirtualBox “Extension Pack” installed as well – they don’t mention that on the page quoted above.

  • Friday evening jogging at Berlin Tiergarten: 8.83 km in 00:54:00

  • printing over the LAN through a “Network USB 2.0 Server” to a (network) printer

    The one I own shares its “item#” with the article shown above. My devices is also a “USB Switch” and especially a “USB Print Server”, it is not a “USB Hub” though – but you may attach a “USB Hub“, should that make sense to you.

    • This thing has one USB A-Type port (there you attach the device to be used over the LAN),
    • and multiple USB B-Type ports (there you attach the computers and/or the network router, that want to make use of the device at the USB A-Type port),
    • and you can switch manually to the “active” USB B-Type port.

    Actually my printer

    • is not a network printer my itself,
    • but only through this “USB Server“,
    • and also actually the printer is in fact an MFP,
    • because it’s also a scanner (with a feeder)
    • and a fax machine.

    If you want to set it up on a Mac running OS X,

    • you simply “+” a new device at “Printers & Scanners“,
    • at “Default” all printers found through Bonjour get listed – Bonjour gets shown in the Kind column;
    • the remaining procedure is trivial.

    My printer did not get shown today, and that was simply, because I had accidentally disconnected the printer from the “USB Server“, when I was busy with the cabling this morning. The “USB Server” has a built-in web-server, and that one has a page “Device Status“, and it did not list the printer. In a professional environment that should obviously get checked SNMP-wise and regularly. Next time I will look at the “Device Status” at little earlier, that’s why I listed it in the beginning of the article.

    I usually print to my MFP through (my router and) this “USB Server”. So the USB Switch is set to the router then – which is connected to one of the USB A-Type ports.

    But sometimes I also scan from the MFP, and therefore it is connected to a Mac mini, which is attached to another USB A-Type port.

    My MFP is a Samsung SCX-4623 resp. SCX-4623F – no, it’s not an SCX-4623FW – then the “USB Server” would not be necessary.

    I wrote this article,

    • because I wanted to print to my network printer,
    • and I couldn’t (as it was (accidentally) not attached to the USB Server),
    • and I also could not set the printer up again,
    • and I could not get hold on the necessary manuals immediately,
    • and I actually this article with all its details helps more than the manuals involved.

    Update 2014-07-15:
    The vanilla Mac OS X on my 2014 Mac mini did not have the drivers for my Samsung printers available, even not after the 1st OS updates. After attaching one of them via USBn though (apparently) all the Samsung printer drivers got installed (supposedly via the network). Then installing them one way or the other as network printers worked.

  • Wednesday early evening jogging at Berlin Tiergarten: 8.88 km in 00:57:15

  • how to get informed of all the Mozilla Firefox beta updates

    In about:config set app.update.channel to beta.